Lost Moments

         As the sun's rays were beginning to push up from the horizon, the moon, just waning, was setting in the west.  A new day began and a chapter of my life ended.  I was seated peacefully, my back against a lone ancient oak, in a field cut short on the east by Anderson Mill Road and bordered on the west by the Tyger River.  I always loved driving the short stretch passed this place; watching a small family of horses grazing or admiring the blue and yellow wildflowers that lined the fence along the road.  I finally got my chance to sit in the open field and be.

         The funny thing about this morning was that I didn't remember waking up and walking the half mile to be here.  I just sort of ended out here, almost like I was really still sleeping and just dreaming the whole bit.  Except it felt real.  I could feel the wind touching my face and the grass, a perfectly deep green, tickled my feet.  The early light from the sun was warming my left cheek and I listened to the silence.  It was warm for a mid-April morning.

         An oddly nagging sense came over me, that I should probably be getting ready for something or somewhere, but I couldn't think of it.  More than a feeling of ignorant procrastination, I began to feel I had left something undone.  That a moment had slipped by and I neglected to recognize it.  It was as if I'd just remembered I had a job interview scheduled for 3 hours ago.  An apology was in order, but it would do me no good.

         I stood up and watched the moon dip behind the trees on the next hill.  As it sank lower, I began to think of all things I never said; goals I never accomplished; moments I never recognized.  The sudden pressure of time struck me, knocking the breath out of my lungs.  I must tell them, before I've lost my chance.  I always thought that life had an strange way of evening things out, that a new opportunity would always present itself in place of the ones that passed by.  While, that is true, those new opportunies can not replace the old ones.  They have their own places, separate and unique from all others.

         I began to run.  Towards the rising sun.  Towards the street.  My bare feet hit the pavement with a smack.  I turned to run south down the hill and over the bridge.  I ran further, passed the cows lining the road near the farm house, passed the newly turned soil where rows of corn would soon be growing, passed schools and cemetaries and nuseries and fields of grass.  I ran on passed the shopping centers and gas stations and golf courses.  I had to speak my mind or live to regret it forever.  Then I stood at her driveway, my heart racing. 

         I walked up the front path to her door and let myself in.  I found her sitting outside in her backyard facing me.  I waited a moment before opening the sliding door to go back outside.  Her reddish brown hair lay lightly at her shoulder and her thoughtful blue eyes caught me, though she made no motion for me to join her.  She sighed and for a moment I thought I saw her eyes well up.
"What could be bothering her?", I wondered.  I went to reach for the door, just as she stood up and let herself back in.  She looked stunning in her black dress.  Her complexion more smooth and beautiful than I even remembered.

         "Hi", I said.

         She walked by and took a deep breath. Exhaling, she stepped by me
without a word.

         "I just wanted to talk to you. I feel like I've left things undone between us.", I tried.

         She cried, reaching for a bouquet of wildflowers from the table.           

         "Why'd do you have leave?", she wept.  "Dammit, how could you?". Her voice quavered with desperation and what sounded like lonliness.          

         "I came back.  I wanted to tell you I do love you.  I feel like I've wasted all this time, not speaking my mind.  Not telling you how I felt, or explaining what my dreams were for us."

         She walked away from me without a word or a glance.  With flowers in hand, her black dress gently swaying around her ankles, she paused at the front door and whispered, "I loved you with all my heart and never got to tell you."